The Future of Payments: How AI is Changing Decision Making

Virginia Heyburn is back with another episode of Fintech Unleashed. In today’s episode, Virginia is joined by Dr. Art Harper, Engage fi’s Strategic Consultant, Payments, to explore the role of AI in payment decision making. They discuss how AI-driven solutions can streamline processes, enhance personalized offers to strengthen customer/member relationships, and even support financial literacy initiatives.

Transcript

Virginia Heyburn (00:01.583)
Welcome back to another episode of FinTech Unleashed, where we explore the latest innovation reshaping the financial services industry. I'm Virginia Haber, Director of Research, Insights and Advocacy at EngageFI. And today I'm joined by my colleague, Dr. Art Harper, strategic consultant of payments at EngageFI. I'm so looking forward to this conversation because Art knows payments and payments as we know them are changing dramatically, they're changing quickly.

in large part because of the huge leaps forward our industry is taking courtesy of artificial intelligence. So today, leaning on Art's decades of experience in payments, we're going to look closely at the role of artificial intelligence in payment decision making. We'll discuss how AI-driven solutions can streamline processes, enhance personalized offers to strengthen the customer or the member relationship, and even support financial education initiatives.

This is a really exciting discussion, so let's dive right in.

Virginia Heyburn (01:06.617)
Dr. Art Harper, it's just so fun to say that. I don't get to say that very often in the payments world, welcome.

Dr Art Harper (01:13.582)
Well, thank you. Thank you, Virginia, for having me here today.

Virginia Heyburn (01:17.414)
Tell us about your background and your role at EngageFI. What are you up to?

Dr Art Harper (01:22.318)
Sure, so you know, quick background of who I am and how I'm here at EngageFI now is as I started my career off in credit unions. So working for credit unions for several years in the payments area. actually working here in Charleston, South Carolina for credit unions called South Carolina Federal Credit Union and actually manage all of their payments. So when we think of that, we're thinking credit cards, debit cards for both consumer and business.

managing all of the ATMs and then course ACH and online banking as well. Spent time there and then also went into the, what I would call more or less, working over within the QSO environment of helping credit unions leverage the opportunities that they have from a payment processing standpoint. So leveraging the tools that are out there to make them as successful as possible and growing and managing their portfolio.

coming here to engage FI. My title here is a strategic consultant, specific in the payments area. And what that means is that once again, I'm really working with our credit union and banking partners to ensure that we are leveraging all of the opportunities to make them as competitive as they can be in the space.

Virginia Heyburn (02:38.205)
I love that. So you've been in the payments industry for a long time. You've seen it from different sides. And I often think of AI and payments. There's this one idea that, well, all the talk is around generative AI, but there's this whole other side of traditional artificial intelligence. It's been around for a long time, but what I think we sometimes lose in the AI discussion these days is that there have been a lot of advancements there too. We have a lot more processing power.

As a result of that, can solve some problems in payments that have been around for a very long time. You've seen it. What are the pervasive and long-standing business problems that various companies in the payments ecosystem are trying to solve for?

Dr Art Harper (03:22.626)
Sure, yeah, there's a number of things that we can really kind of touch on and where AI can really help us kind of navigate and be more progressive in the payments arena. And so when I think about that, you know, I almost think about actually when the cardholder initially calls in to a call center, you know, today there's kind of limited information, there's limited opportunities to really help them understand that there are a wealth of different things that their financial institution can offer for them.

And so using AI as this example, right? They can take the opportunity of when Art calls in as the example and someone's talking to Art on the phone, they can now bring up the opportunity to say, okay, he has a mortgage loan with us today. He has an automobile loan. He may have a boat loan. He has an IRA. We are his primary financial institution, but we see that he doesn't have a credit card. And then of course, also pulling within that, right? Having the ability to pull in the credit score, they can...

generate a pre-approved offer so that now prompts a scrim for that call center representative to say, by the way, we wanted to let you know that you already pre-approved for a credit card for $10,000 at a certain rate. And we'd be happy to look at maybe transferring a balance that looks like you may or may not have with Amex, Citi, whoever it could be. And so you're instantly kind of strengthening that relationship with that card holder on the phone. And so there's some of those things that can be taken in place there.

And generally, even on top of that, even if they already have the credit card with us, it could also take a look at and generate an offer from a credit line increase perspective. Or it could actually even on the top of that portion of it as well, it could take a look at where do they normally shop at? What merchant category codes do they look more that they normally purchase? And from that standpoint, having that ability to be able to generate marketing offers. So saying something like as we get into summertime.

having that ability to say, by the way, if you use your credit card while you're on vacation at travel parks, hotels, et cetera, airlines, you're gonna have that ability to earn triple points over the next three months or two months. So it's really going to increase that cardholder usage and really strengthen the relationship. And that's where AI benefits us most.

Virginia Heyburn (05:43.325)
I've even heard financial institutions being able to now offer dynamic credit limits. So really in real time, being able to assess the risk that any one customer member poses and in real time, just being able to say, okay, right now in this moment, this is your credit limit. And that could change in a week or a month or a year. It's not something that is as static as it has been historically.

Dr Art Harper (06:09.26)
Yeah, that's correct. You when we think of the tools that we have today, right, our tools today are really kind of what I would call more retroactive, meaning it's looking at what the cardholder has done previously. So what is the credit score? And that credit score is really what we did last month, right? And of course, from that standpoint, having the ability to kind of pull something within a real time environment, to not only just pull that credit score to generate that offer,

but it can also then strengthen that as well, from a number of different aspects, like I said before, from a marketing campaign. And with on top of that, we can strengthen that relationship with even if not so much within payments, we can also take and look at other avenues that the cardholder can have. Maybe it's even within financial literacy as an example. So if we see a cardholder who potentially could be struggling, because the score is different than what we see on the screen,

that offer could change, but we can also then steer them towards financial literacy programs. And so there's greater opportunity for us to get to really know the cardholder, or I guess I should say the consumer or customer, and a much more deeper level, in a real time level than we've ever had in the past.

Virginia Heyburn (07:22.149)
So it's also that being able to take a look at the whole customer, the whole member in real time to generate that offer, to generate the experience that that customer member has with the institution.

Dr Art Harper (07:34.74)
Exactly, right? So we're having that ability to pull that credit immediately to get that look at. We can take it then a snapshot as to what is the current balance? What is the current available credit limit? And based upon that, right, we can make some decisions and generate an offer. Or like I said, at the same time, even if it's a situation where we can't generate the right offer that we need to generate, maybe we then can also assist them with some other things. If we see that there's an opportunity.

AI cannot just maybe solely focus just on a credit card increase, right? It could be the decrease. It could also be looking at taking a look at saying, hey, there's an opportunity for you to consolidate some of your debt. And so here's an offer to consolidate some of your debt and your mortgage account with us now. So maybe we can steer you to a HELOC program, To consolidate that debt. And those are the things that really, once again, really will combine.

and strengthen that relationship between the financial institution and that end user, which is the customer slash card.

Virginia Heyburn (08:36.259)
And I see that being particularly true art for younger customers and members. We see in survey after survey that younger customers and members want their financial institution to help them get better with money, to feel better about their financial lives, to really be able to tap into that relationship in an emotional way as opposed to a transactional way. And what I'm hearing you say is AI in the payment space can help institutions do exactly that.

You had mentioned financial literacy or financial education. Can you go into that a little bit deeper?

Dr Art Harper (09:09.9)
Yeah, think that's, I think it's extremely important in our current environment. You know, as as you mentioned, a lot of the, you know, younger borrowers, I'll call it, right, that are coming up, they may have not gotten those tools to understand really what credit is, what does it mean to them, and what's the importance of paying on time and managing credit properly, right? As well as, you know, having that opportunity to take and we'll call it manufacture, right?

a financial literacy program for those individuals that can benefit them from a number of different standpoints. So we can teach them the basics through AI, right, through that program. And once they graduate through that program, maybe they get some sort of incentive. So maybe that's the initial credit card that they get. From there, it's the opportunity for them to learn a little bit more. So it's not so much about how to balance your budget. Maybe then it's taking them to the next step.

of balancing your budget and saving for your first home or saving for the future, meaning your retirement. But as we take them through those initial steps, I will call it steps one, two, and three, as I outlined, it could be the opportunity for us to strengthen not only by giving them the initial credit card, the first home loan, right? The first IRA account. And so that gives them that opportunity as young borrowers that may or may not be getting those educational tools that they...

may or may not be getting today out in the environment. And I think in addition to that, right, it helps for the card holders, you know, that have our customers that have been around for a period of time that may have fallen on some hard times and they just don't understand or have the means to understand how to get back on track. So here, once again, right, we can take, we can take AI and build out those financial literacy tools to take and show them, okay, here's how you're going to start rebuilding back your credit.

Virginia Heyburn (10:52.581)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Art Harper (11:03.254)
And so maybe it's the first start is, you know, taking out a share loan as an example, right, against their money and their savings account and then graduating them to a secured type of a credit card and then graduating them from that secured credit card into an actually unsecured product over time. And within that, we're taking those steps with them to once again, educate them because maybe they didn't get that education at some point in time as to how to properly manage money. And so

AI can really help us build out those incentives and on top of that, within those incentives, we can then strengthen that relationship, but we can also build a stronger relationship within the entire community by showing that we as a credit union or a banking partner are really caring about our community and the wellness of our community.

Virginia Heyburn (11:53.285)
You know, we've just come off the spring conference season and we've all been very active out there talking to banks and credit unions. In my conversations, what I'm hearing a lot is, we know we need to change the model. We need to offer our customers and members more of an advisory model. We need to support younger members and customers in particular, as we talked about already. But we don't exactly know how to go about doing that. We know we need financial education. But what we're talking about here now, Art, is

is AI as the plumbing for those types of strategies that banks and credit unions really have to start pursuing.

Dr Art Harper (12:31.97)
Yeah, I agree. And I think that, you we have to kind of look inwardly, right, from an infrastructure perspective, as you mentioned, right? Where's the pipeline at? Where's the ability to be able to do that? And I think the first piece of that is as we get someone in the door is really making sure that from a CRM system standpoint, right, that we have all the information that we have to help us build out those, what I'm going to call tools and programs.

that will allow us to best benefit the opportunities to help each one of them grow. And so when I think of that, I think of it as an opportunity for us to, every program might be a little bit different, right? The program for the initial group coming in the door between we'll call it 16 and 18, that program is gonna look a whole lot different than someone that's 21, about to graduate college within the next year or two.

Right, so their program looks a little bit different. And I think by having that initial infrastructure of a CRM tool that will allow them to actually kind of, for lack of better terms, graduate into each one of those separated programs, we'll really kind of have that benefit. And where from a financial institution standpoint, we really need to take a look at our CRM system. What do we have today? What are the capabilities of that? And where can AI...

leverage and build out those programs and tools that we're talking about.

Virginia Heyburn (13:57.913)
and allow CRM systems to really fulfill the promise that we've been talking about for decades now, right? With these much more powerful AI capabilities, CRM can help institutions move from this classically product-centric operational model to a, what is necessarily a customer or member-centric operational model.

Dr Art Harper (14:19.758)
Exactly, right? When I think of a CRM tool in the way that it's been used in the past, it's really been used for, know, Art's birthday is coming up, let's make sure we send some sort of a birthday email for him or, you know, $10 off at the local grocery store or whatever the case that may be, right? We've really not leveraged those opportunities. And as you mentioned, right, this is, this has the opportunity for us to take advantage of really knowing who each person is. What do they have?

What, and when I say what do they have, right? It's everything. It's the draft accounts that they have, right? Savings, checking, money markets. Do they have an IRA? Do they not have one? Should we be talking to them about one? Where are they at within that stage of life to where we are properly advising them on what products they need? And then of course, at the same time, Where are they at from a payment standpoint to say,

here's the best offer for you. So if I see as an example that, know, Art has a lot of these different things and he uses his card primarily at sporting goods. I don't need to spend the time from a marketing campaign to send him things for back to school because he really spends money on sporting goods. And based off of everything that I know in CRM, he doesn't have any children at home. So we don't see those types of merchant category codes.

So we don't need to take that time away from a marketing campaign, the dollars and services to send him something that he's not going to use. So once again, that's where CRM can leverage those types of things and give the right marketing message to me at the right time, right? Whether it's payments, whether it's the need of an IRA, whether it's the need of the first auto line, right? All of those different things, right, is where we can take CRM and AI and leverage it way beyond payments for the future.

Virginia Heyburn (16:14.909)
And it's something that I think everybody can relate to, this vision that you're describing. You go online, you buy a garden shovel, and all of a sudden all you see online or on social media is garden shovels or various garden instruments. So this has been done in other industries, this kind of very customized outreach and marketing approach, and now banks and credit unions are diving in big time.

Dr Art Harper (16:41.006)
Yeah, definitely. Right. As you mentioned, right. If I go in and if I look at a tie as an example online, right. The next thing I know that I'm getting the different types of color shirts that that tie best goes with or the suit that that color of suit that goes best with that tie. You know, and if you think about that, they're leveraging that, right. They're saying, hey, we haven't seen that he's bought a suit recently or he hasn't bought a dress shirt recently. And so here let's let's partner that with that. And so it's going to be the same thing as we think about it from a financial industry perspective.

You know, just because I come in and say, I need a car, a credit card. Well, I just said that I, I don't know. I don't know what my limit should be. I don't, all I know is, is I want to go out and, know, I just bought a boat and I want to go out and buy everything that I need for the boat. And so I'm gonna put that on my credit card, right? I need that. I need the ropes. I need the life jackets. need the anchors. I need all of those great things. And now within that being said, right. I don't know how much of a credit limit I need.

Do I need a thousand? Do I need five thousand? Do I need ten thousand? So that's where the opportunity comes into play by knowing who each individual is when they come in the door, what they have as a whole. We have the best opportunity then to present to them. Right. Oh, Art, yeah. You're talking about that credit card. Yeah, we got that boat loan for you. Let's talk a little bit about all of those three things you're going to buy. By the way, are you going to dry dock that boat or are you going to actually, you know, do you need to do something because of an HOA and you got to park it somewhere?

Okay, well then let's think about that from a credit card perspective. You're pre-approved already for $10,000. Would that work for you? Art's probably gonna say, that's perfect. Way more than I need. But we gave them the right offer at the right time. We set a limit for them that has the ability for them to not feel like when they walk out the door, maybe I should have asked for more or I went and spent that money and now I'm too close to my credit limit and now I'm not gonna use that card for a period of time.

So by giving them the right offer at the right time based off the, we'll call it the whole picture of the person, we now can give them the opportunity to best fit not only the immediate need, but the need that they potentially could have for the next, we'll say year to year and a half down the road.

Virginia Heyburn (18:55.205)
It's offers, right? But it's also options, new payment options. And this is again important for young people. They're telling us, well, we want to have options to pay with a card, different cards, debit, credit. We want buy now, pay later. We want that ability, but we want it to be seamless. We want it to be easy. And so artificial intelligence, as I look at it, it gives banks and credit unions and really anybody in the payment space, retailers included, the ability to offer those different options.

but not the complexity that would surface as something that would be visible to the customer member. So it is that simple, seamless experience, greatly enhanced because of options and highly personalized through the golfers.

Dr Art Harper (19:38.804)
Yes, I mean, you when you think about this, right, and you mentioned buy now pay later within within the context of payments. And that's one of those newer things. And I think that works so well within financial literacy. You know, we see a lot of that in every website you go to. As an example, you know, a firm or carna or somebody is popping up. Right. And now all of the financial institutions have kind of got into the buy now pay later. We'll call it toolset.

But I think if you talk to a lot of people, they truly really don't probably understand buy now pay later. They just think of it as a loan and they just think of it as some sort of a short-term loan. They don't really understand that. so one, financial literacy really can kind of assist, I'll call it our younger borrowers and even our more mature borrowers on really what buy now pay later means to them.

And as you mentioned a little bit earlier, right, as younger borrowers or younger cardholders come into the space, they want to have that we'll call it instant gratification, right? We have a society that is based upon instant gratification. so within that being said, right, pushing a card immediately to them. So how great is it? And we don't do this today. And really any good, I'll call it streamlined process of where, you know, I'm online either

with my desktop or whether I'm on my phone, go online, apply for a credit card, get that immediate approval based upon all the other history of who I am with your financial institution, get that instant approval, get that card pushed down to my wallet for immediate use, right? When we think about that, we're still in a big, a little bit of a delay. We can apply online, but we don't get instant approval and card push down to the mobile device. So these are, once again, things that is

younger borrowers wanting instant gratification, that's almost going to be almost like a table steak for them coming into the future because they go online now. And if you think about it, you know, they're, they, they order food and get food within the next, you know, five or 10 minutes and they expect it within five or 10 minutes. They don't want to wait a day or two or three for a credit card to come to them in the mail or much less have an application reviewed and approved. They want it now.

Virginia Heyburn (21:57.381)
Do you think banks and credit unions are getting inspired to invest in AI in a much faster way because of the business problems that they see internally, maybe a need for efficiency, just to solve some of these old problems that they've had for decades that they now see an opportunity to get out of? Or do you think it's more because the fintech providers who are going really hard on artificial intelligence are motivating them to

to just get with the program, invest, innovate, otherwise they could well struggle in the future. What do you think it is? Is it internal motivation or external motivation?

Dr Art Harper (22:36.002)
I almost kind of see it as it's probably about a 50-50. I think there are some of our financial institutions that are out there that are really more progressive. They're really kind of forward thinking. They're thinking ahead of those types of opportunities that AI can bring to the table. At the same time, I think there are some that are a little more conservative and they're waiting to see how things are happening and they're waiting to see how

for lack of better terms, right? How AI is going to pan out. And the reason that I say that they may be a little more conservative and they wanna see how things are gonna pan out was because if you think back just a few years ago, blockchain and Bitcoin, Litecoin, it was making like these big rounds and everybody was gonna get into it. And you saw a lot of processing partners even go out there and start touting, we're going to start doing this. there was a lot of what I would call

unfinished due diligence around things like regulations and security and some of those components that really didn't allow for it to take off as much as the industry touted it. So I think that's where you see this 50-50 mix. You see some waiting and they're allowing the fintechs to take a foothold, unfortunately, in front of them. But then there's that other 50 % that's saying, hey, this is...

going to be very important. It's very beneficial for us. It gives us greater efficiencies for the future. And they're seeing those benefits already in a lot of different areas.

Virginia Heyburn (24:12.581)
When I talk to banks and credit unions, especially during this conference season, the one thing that I hear is we understand that AI is important, it's important in payments, but the way the industry is talking to us right now, it seems more of a fitting conversation for larger institutions. need the language that applies to us, to smaller financial institutions. We need a way forward in bite-sized chunks.

And so one of the things that I always think about Art is let's talk about fraud. Let's talk about payments fraud. It's always been an issue. It seems to be a bigger problem today than it ever has been. Everybody's worried about fraud growth. Why is that? What's happening and how can AI help banks and credit unions? Immediately.

Dr Art Harper (25:00.096)
Yeah, I mean, you when we think of fraud nowadays, right there, you know, account takeover, you know, family friendly fraud type of situations, been attacks, you know, all of these different things, right, are really kind of, you know, I'll say challenging us, right, as financial institutions to keep pace with, with what the bad guys are doing out there in the in the industry. And, know, from an AI perspective, right, it can identify things much faster, right? When we think of once again,

Fraud is more, for lack of better terms, it's more reactive. We're catching the things after it's already been hitting those accounts. So when we think about that as already a thousand accounts have been hit in that bin range and within that, now we're going to make some sort of strategy change to our fraud strategy. Or we've already had that person do the account takeover and do a bunch of things against that account.

before the person recognizes it and then we close the account. is going to, and within, once again, right, within collaboration and any implementation integration of that CRM tool, they're gonna kind of know, right, what Art does in terms of where does he shop, how much does he average at least spend, what time of day does he shop, all of those different things. And it's going to have, for lack of better terms, that history of me.

Right, that behavioral history of how I pay, what do I use, how much I spend, where I spend it. And then at any point in time, right, if there's an abnormality that kind of hits, right, AI then can immediately take that opportunity to go out and identify if that's not within my behavioral pattern, maybe at that point it's going to automatically, you know, put my card into a quote unquote kind of a warm status, right? That warm status.

then says, hey, I need to reach out to Art before anything else hits that card and let's get a notification from him to verify that transaction is good or not. And so with that being said, all of that is gonna be a little more proactive than reactive, right? Because it's going to have that behavioral history. So there's those opportunities that kind of exist there. And if it, once again, right, from AI, from that ARCRM,

Dr Art Harper (27:18.222)
I'll call it collaboration, if we also see that all of a sudden one merchant source is trying to our bin for multiple transactions at one time, then once again, it can take that opportunity to put something in place before the processing partner may take a look at it or before the example may be in an association level. So once again, it's trying to be quicker than

and being more proactive than reactive. So there are opportunities there for us from a behavioral history standpoint of how we spend, where we spend, where AI can help combat some fraud.

Virginia Heyburn (27:58.999)
And in that same line of thinking around real-time fraud data, it's exactly the same when it comes to real-time spending insights that we've talked about before, right? What are banks and credit unions going to do with those AI-powered spending insights that they simply could not do before? That, to me, is a big strategic question for our industry.

Dr Art Harper (28:21.088)
Yeah, I mean, when we think about the ability of having more what I'm going to call data at our fingertips, right, to make decisions. And it doesn't have to be, it can be from any standpoint, right? But today we're talking kind of primarily from a payment standpoint. And from that payment standpoint, we have that opportunity to be able to say, you know, where does he go and spend his money? How much does he averagely spend? What does this credit line look like? What does that utilization percentage?

And, know, but within all of those things, we then can generate offers, right? We can generate real-time offers when they're on the phone, on the phone at the call, with the call center as an example, or right, it doesn't even have to be at that standpoint, right? It can generate the offer and send the offer to them. could send it to their phone. You know, when we think about that, right? We think about geolocation services that we primarily think of within a fraud standpoint. We think geolocation services, hey,

If they see that I'm in Ireland and maybe now all of a sudden my fraud strategy is now hit and taken place because I'm there so I don't have to do a travel, I forgot to do my travel notification, that enhances that cardholder experience. Or, by the way, you see that I'm at Six Flags as an example, and now all of a sudden I'm at Six Flags, I use my card, by the way, send a message to my phone proactively to say, remember, that marketing campaign that's on the books.

for the ability for you to use it at travel, amusement parks, right? Car rentals, airfare, et cetera. That still applies for the entire month until August 31st. Get your triple points while you can. So once again, it's a reinforcement in a real time manner. taking those opportunities to strengthen that relationship by understanding where they are, what they spend, providing the right offer at the right time.

is just going to be so valuable for us in the future from an overall payments perspective and the ability to once again grow and manage your portfolio in the most efficient way.

Virginia Heyburn (30:25.955)
And it's payments configuration and design, choosing the appropriate payments rails that are the most efficient for not only the customer member, but also for the financial institution. AI has so many use cases. paint the vision for us five years down the road. What does the design of the consummate payments experience look

Dr Art Harper (30:51.404)
Well, I would say hopefully, right? I think there's always change, things change. Sometimes we don't adopt as quickly as we should. But when we think about this, I would think of five years down the road, I have the ability, I go into my financial institution. They already, I just have a savings account that was opened up for me many years ago. I'm 16 years old, I get my first checking account, they give me my debit card.

They see as I progress over time, I then become a college age student, right? I now have the opportunity to take some financial literacy courses that are kind of generated geared towards me and my bracket of age, right? So letting me learn more about that, generating then me at that point, giving me a credit card. At that same timeframe over as I go through those stages of life, looking at my opportunities of alcohol and income,

generating, higher income generating as I graduate college, that ability to increase that credit card based off of good payment history, my good credit score. At the same time, with that being said, marketing, the ability to market for me, telling me what are the best options for me from a shopping standpoint to maximize my utilization percentages off of that card, maybe from a rewards or cash back perspective.

You know, so those are the things right from that payments perspective in the next five years where I'm not having to go in and ask for these things. Like I need a credit line increase or I'd like to see if my rate can be lowered or any of those types of things. Those things are going to be intuitively done. And so I don't have to go in and ask for them. They're going to be offered to me. And I think that's the important piece of this is where, whether it be payments, whether it be another product set,

those things are going to be intuitive for us and provided to us in a consumable fashion.

Virginia Heyburn (32:51.757)
I love that. And I'm so glad you used the example of the young people because they are the largest generational segment today. They have extraordinary purchasing power. They are the future of our industry and we have to figure out how to connect with them on their terms. So my final thought art is that AI is transforming payments by making decision making so much smarter, so much faster and also more secure. So if a financial institution has not started planning

to implement AI in their payment strategy now is a really good time to start. Time is of the essence when it comes to innovation because the competition is not standing still, the customer or member, they're not standing still, and financial institutions cannot afford to stand still when it comes to AI in payments.

Dr Art Harper (33:40.986)
I would totally agree with that. think if you haven't started looking and thinking of AI and how to implement AI within your CRM system today, you need to start tomorrow. I don't think that we need to wait until 2026, 2027 or beyond. I think the longer that you wait, the further that you fall behind. And especially when I think of that, as I mentioned just a minute ago,

right, the intuitiveness of this opportunity, right, not having to worry about how are we going to structure a marketing campaign? How are we going to decide upon when we should be doing credit line increases and decreases? How should we think about doing financial literacy and what program should we think about providing and who should we provide them to? All of those things, right, will take care of themselves within that what I'm going to call, right, that implementation of a CRM, AI, I'm going to call it machine.

And so if you've not thought about that, that probably needs to be one of your top priorities going into your 2026 planning.

Virginia Heyburn (34:45.487)
Dr. Art Harper, you have the final word. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.

Dr Art Harper (34:51.457)
Thank you very much. Appreciate the opportunity.

Virginia Heyburn (34:54.221)
And I also want to thank you, the listeners, for tuning in, for choosing EngageFI as your source of information for banking technology services. Please be sure to look out for the next episode of FinTech Unleashed by following EngageFI on LinkedIn. And as always, if you want to continue this conversation around innovation and financial services, please reach out to us. We are EngageFI on LinkedIn. Until next time, have a great day, everyone.